Undergraduate Programs

Research Opportunities

All Sociology and ISS majors will participate in a Senior Research Project as part of the requirements for their capstone courses -- SYA 4935: Senior Seminar (for Sociology majors) and ISS 4935: Seminar in the Social Sciences (for ISS majors).

Students at Open House

In addition to the Senior Research Project, Sociology and ISS majors have a variety of options to gain additional experience conducting social scientific research. To prepare themselves to take advantage of these opportunities, students are encouraged to take SYA 3300: Research Methods and STA 2122: Social Science Statistics as early as possible in their college careers.

To gain additional research experience as an undergraduate student:

  1. Consider applying to the Honors College (if you are in your first year of studies at 91tvӰԺ) or to the Sociology Honor's Program (if you are Junior standing). Either one of these programs will require you to complete and undergraduate thesis research project with the guidance of a faculty mentor.

  2. If you've established a professional relationship with a faculty member and you would like to pursue a particular research project under their guidance, consider asking them to open a section of SYA 4910: Individual Research to earn course credit for your research.

  3. Consider in enrolling in one of our two Research Experience courses -- SYA 4304: Sociological Research Experience or ISS 4304: Interdisciplinary Community Research -- whenever these courses appear on the course schedule. These courses are for advanced undergraduate students interested in participating in ongoing faculty research projects. Students will complete selected research tasks (e.g., background research, data collection, data analysis, etc.) with faculty supervision.
ISS Student

Whatever research experiences you embark on, always consider presenting your research at the annual One91tvӰԺ Undergraduate Research Conference, which is held every spring. For more details, please visit the Office of High Impact Practices & Undergraduate Research.

ISS major Alexandra Mancini (right) presents her Directed Study research at the 2020 Student Research Symposium, St. Petersburg campus.